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Fiction

The idea for Forbidden Fruit came to me in the expansive garden of an old colonial bungalow in Nairobi’s Lavington Estate, where I was then working as a gardener. Although the book was first published in Kenya in 2002 as The Stone Hills of Maragoli, it reverted to its working title when it was reissued by my American publisher, The Mantle, in 2017. We were in the middle of our Nairobi “winter,” around June or July. Back then the seasons were fairly regular and predictable, before the Global Warming monster came upon us.

While in university, the highlights of stories I wrote occurred to me during strolls. My parents lived on a university campus in Ile-Ife, at the edge of the staff quarters. It would take me twenty minutes to get to school from our house. I walked mostly at night. Done with the day’s work, and so fatigued I sometimes dozed on the road. I saw the value in being somnambulant, and the promise stupor held: the right name for a character on the tip of my tongue.

A young woman loses her grip on reality, destroyed by being the mistress of a powerful general. A pastor hides the innocent from marauding gangs hyped up by post-election fervor. A philosophy professor struggles against his better judgment to save everyone but himself. In present day Nigeria, there are many centers of the universe.

Writer's Notes is a series that invites writers to detail their projects at any stage in their process. Writer Jessica Pishko parses her memories as a first year law student and of the summer she worked on a death penalty case in North Carolina for her debut novel A Trial for Grace.